1 loaf of Hawaiian sweet bread, 8 ounces of fromage blanc, 1/2 cup diced pineapple, 1/4 cup sweetened coconut, and 2 Tbsp. sugar (not pictured because it was in a styrofoam cup that I stole from my office-- no sense in buying a whole huge bag of sugar when I only needed 2 Tbsp.). You'll note there's also some ham in the frame-- this is because I wanted to expand on the recipe and try something similar to a Hawaiian pizza (aka ham and pineapple). I figured that could be my entree and the one without ham could be dessert!
Step one was spreading the coconut on a baking sheet and putting it in a 300 degree oven for 6-7 minutes.
It came out smelling yummy and looking like this:
While that was cooking I had been working on starting the rest of the filling. Since I had a can of pineapple chunks lying around I wanted to make use of them, but the recipe calls for minced pineapple-- so I chopped the chunks up, but noticed that this caused a lot of the juice to run out, so I'd sort of try to scoop the juice into the bowl with the minced pineapple to preserve it. Turns out this might not have been the best idea (I'll explain in a second).
Once the pineapple was minced I added the fromage blanc to it. I had never tasted fromage blanc before, and for those of you who haven't either I would best describe it as a sort of cross between Greek yogurt and sour cream. So I stirred that in with the pineapple, the 2 Tbsp. of sugar and the toasted coconut.
Next I cut up four large slices of the Hawaiian bread (that I then cut in half to make manageable sized sandwiches) and buttered one side of each. I was first introduced to Hawaiian bread when they used it for communion at church and man is it delicious! It tastes just like dense angel food cake (needless to say, I was snacking on the excess).
The obvious next step was applying the pineapple mixture evenly to the slices of bread. This is when I realized that my addition of the pineapple juice may not have been the best idea. The mixture was really runny, almost like a thick soup consistency. This didn't leave me feeling good about the prospect of it actually staying on the sandwich as I cooked it. Oh well, I trust GGC to not lead me astray.
Next it was time for my rebellious deviation from the recipe-- I added the sliced brown sugar ham to two of the sandwiches.
I still wasn't confident that this would be enough to counteract the sweetness (I had sampled the mixture and it was pure sugar). Lucky for me, I still had a smidgen of jack cheese left over from the spicy double jack sandwich, so I grated the cheese up and added it to one of the ham sandwiches.
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| Oh Snap! Getting Crazy! |
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| Notice the bread does not look pinched together at all. |
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| First pass at cooking was NOT a pretty sight. |
I ended up with the following results:
Does anyone else feel like the ham sandwich is sticking its tongue out at you? Just me? OK then...
They weren't quite as toasted as I usually like my sandwiches (I let my fear of burning them/the difficulty in flipping them scare me into not cooking them for long enough), but resolved this when making the second batch by cooking them on a slightly higher heat. Here's one of those:
Taste Review:
I started off with the "entree" aka sandwich with ham. It was literally hard to hold it because the bread is so soft (and prone to holes). Immediately upon tasting it I was grateful for the ham-- the sandwich is so sweet that there has to be something to balance out that sugar and the ham was definitely trying. I didn't notice the jack cheese (which is surprising because usually it's a good sharp contrast), but I'm sure it must have been helping because things were SO SWEET that anything even slightly balancing it out would make a difference. The obvious need for the ham made me curious as to what the non-ham sandwich would taste like, so I switched over and tried some of that one.
fromage blanc is just there to provide a base to which the sweets can be added. I went ahead and finished this one so I could move back to the better tasting ham.
Coming back to the first sandwich only reaffirmed how crucial the ham is to counteract the sugar. Again I wished that I had charred this sandwich more, but live and learn! However, even with the ham I still might call this a dessert grilled cheese. The ham was trying to mute the sweetness, but the sugar was just so strong it was hard to overpower.
A potential tweak to the recipe to tame the sweetness would be to not add sugar. I'm not sure why sugar was deemed necessary when everything else was so sweet! And if that isn't enough de-sweetening for you, changing out the type of bread might help too. I would like to see this to move closer to literally being a ham and pineapple grilled cheese (similar to a ham and pineapple pizza).
FINAL RESULTS:
| Sandwich: | Hawaiian Grilled Cheese | Hawaiian Grilled Cheese with Ham |
| Gooey-ness: | 5 (runny, not gooey) | 4.5 (less runny b/c of ham, but still runny) |
| Aroma: | 2 | 2 |
| Appearance: | Both sandwiches looked yellow and mushy/goopy, one of them just happened to have some ham hanging out as well. | |
| Taste: | B- | B |
Too sweet for me (which is saying a lot because I have the biggest sweet tooth known to man), but could be improved upon by toning down some of the sweeter ingredients and playing up some savory ingredients.
| Gooey Scale | Aroma Scale |
| 1 = still cold/hard | 1 = can’t smell a thing |
| 2 = slightly melted but still firm | 2 = tender waft |
| 3 = melted evenly | 3 = makes your stomach growl |
| 4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite) | 4 = strong scent |
| 5 = runny | 5 = overpoweringly pungent |
| 6 = sloppy mess! | |
Next Week: Back to the savory side with a super cheesy creation!
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